Asters advised VimpelCom, a leading international telecommunications holding and Kyivstar's parent, on USD 2.2 billion debt financing with 3-year floating rate guaranteed notes, long 5-year guaranteed notes and long 10-year guaranteed notes, all guaranteed by VimpelCom Holdings' subsidiary OJSC "Vimpel-Communications".

The 3-year USD 200 million floating rate notes bear an annual interest rate of 3 month USD LIBOR plus 4.00% and is due in June 2014. The long 5-year USD 500 million issue has a coupon of 6.2546% and is due in March 2017. The long 10-year USD 1.5 billion issue has a coupon of 7.5043% and is due in March 2022.

Barclays Bank PLC, BNP Paribas, Citigroup Global Markets Limited, HSBC Bank plc, ING Bank N.V. and The Royal Bank of Scotland plc have acted as lead managers for the financing. VimpelCom Holdings B.V. intends to use the net proceeds from the issuance to provide funds to its direct parent, VimpelCom Amsterdam B.V., to repay any outstanding amounts under VimpelCom Amsterdam B.V.'s loan from a group of international banks (including Barclays Capital, BNP Paribas, Citibank, N.A., London Branch, ING Bank NV, HSBC Bank plc and The Royal Bank of Scotland plc) in a principal amount of up to USD 2.5 billion due March 31, 2012 (USD 2.2 billion of which was drawn down).

Asters' transaction team included associates Svitlana Chepurna, Yevgen Kravtsov, Anna Novodvorska and Yevgen Porada under supervision of senior partner Armen Khachaturyan and managing partner Oleksiy Didkovskiy. Akin Gump LLP acted as English law counsel to the issuer.

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